Tennis: a snob sport for the upper class?

^^ the suggestion that "50 years ago there were very few public courts in the USA" is absurd. I started playing as a small kid 50 years ago and courts at high schools, middle schools and public parks were not only abundant but easier to access than years later because the tennis boom of the 70s had not yet begun. What WAS available to the affluent though was quality instruction, which could not yet be found easily in public settings.

^^ the suggestion that "50 years ago there were very few public courts in the USA" is absurd. I started playing as a small kid 50 years ago and courts at high schools, middle schools and public parks were not only abundant but easier to access than years later because the tennis boom of the 70s had not yet begun. What WAS available to the affluent though was quality instruction, which could not yet be found easily in public settings.

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I agree. Of course I grew up in SoCal, where every high and elementary school had courts as did plenty of parks. In fact as a kid I didn't know of any private clubs (I am sure now, looking back, that they existed, and even if they did, they were absolutely not required to play the game).

The basketball analogy is inaccurate in the sense that anyone with a hoop, a driveway to a garage and a ball can play BBall for a few bucks, but then again a Target racquet and a can of balls is not expensive either, if you have access to courts, which in the US 35 years ago was pretty easy.

I think tennis in North America still has the stigma of being a rich white country club sport but in other parts of the world it is seen as a way to gain more opportunity in life. So many Eastern European players play tennis as a way out to have a good life make good money.

You never heard of google? Geesh, Wimbledon and the US Open were very elitist and extremely racist in the 1950s everyone knows that.

Also remember, there was the whole segregation and social apartheid in the USA during the 1950s so Althea Gibson's incredible rise to become a tennis champion is even more extraordinary.

Althea Gibson wasn't allowed to play the US OPEN until 1950 and only after her fellow American a white tennis player Alice Marble wrote a letter criticizing the USTA for their racism. Marble said Althea should be allowed to play and she did due to Marble's letter. Gibson won the US OPEN twice.

As for Wimbledon, it wasn't until the mid 1950s until Gibson was allowed to even play Wimbledon because of the color barrier. Gibson won Wimbledon twice in 1957 and 1958.

The upper class can sometimes be giving to the great unwashed beneath. Dwight Davis came from a priveleged background, started the competition that became the Davis Cup while he was at Harvard, then returned to his native St. Louis where, as Parks Commissioner, he created the first municipal tennis courts in America. Maybe it was that competitive spirit that took him to greater heights, including serving as Secretary of War (War Dept. subsequently became Defense Dept.) in Washington some years later.

tennis was racially segregated in the american south (no blacks in the country clubs)...tennis was religiously segregated in the american north (No Jews in the country clubs) at the same time.

There was little racial segregation or race problem in western europe at the time. Of course, blacks were less than .1% of the population there. Europe had all kinds of problems with Jews, Catholics vs. Protestants, etc., at that time. Not excusing the racism in the american south, it was a bad thing, a shameful thing. Just pointing out that western civilization across the board at that time was much less tolerant than we would like to think.

(2013-50=1963, 7 years AFTER Brown v. Board, racially integrated colleges were the norm, althogh uneasily so still, even in the South)

50 years ago there were very few public courts in the USA.
Ergo, private clubs only, ergo, elitist image
nail up a basketball hoop anywhere for $10 and a $5 ball
(1963 prices) and you've got a place to play.
See how the elitist image exists?

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there was plenty of prejudice in england and europe and there still is today.

Tennis has an elitist image because so much land space is needed for just two players and there's no body contact. Golf and Polo likewise have this image. People tend to correlate the lack of body contact with rich people.